My first cell phone in 1990 was a Motorola "bag phone," mostly carried in my cars. It connected to an auxiliary rear window outside antenna. The phone without the bag looked like the second pic, though mine was slightly different. Bag phones had longer battery life (though mine always plugged into the car cigarette lighter when traveling) and rmore antenna wattage than hand-helds. The later was important when cell towers weren't as widespread as today, even when operating in so-called "coverage areas." Service would still drop in and out, especially on the road.

At the same time that I had my own bag phone, the Army would issue me a handheld Motorola like this one for official travel. Slightly more compact, it had less range, and something less than a 1-hour talk time as I recall. It was for official emergency notifications only (basically theirs, not mine, in case they needed me back at HQ ASAP, or to get some "vital" bit of infro from me), or in case I had a car break-down while driving myself.

And we thought we were being so hi-tech! LOL! No shame about it today, though, it was the cutting edge then, blunt as it seems now. Apparently this advertisement refers to people who might still be trying to use outdated equipment today.

It was a 'Motorola workmate' and was about the size of a brick... i used to carry it a back pack, but when i was going out for the night it got jamed into my jeans poket... which was far from a comfortable experience!

I still have it somewhere in storage... I'm saving it for the day I get invited to a 90's party...

The technology was astounding... you couldn't send sms, the battery life was about 30 mins talk time and 8 hours standby... it could store a massive 9 phone numbers and calls were about $1.89 per minute...